Accra, Ghana, July 25, 2019//-The World Bank’s Chief Economist for Africa, Dr Albert Zeufack, today admonished Ghana and other African countries that digitization could reduce corruption, waste and inefficiencies in their public sectors.
According to him, digitalization would reduce the human interference in the processes of public sector service deliveries on the African continent.
It would also make it difficult for public workers to engage in corruption which is on the rise in Ghana, Nigeria, and other parts of Africa.
For instance, studies from the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), a leading democratic think-tank, indicated that Ghana lost a whopping amount of GHc9.6 billion to public sector corruption in since 2017.
Speaking at an interactive live-stream event, called the Econ-o-thon, organized by the bank, Dr Zeufack noted that digital technologies could speed up the growth and development of Africa’s economies.
To this end, he called on African governments to invest in the studies of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to enable them create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth on the continent.
11 million African graduates enter the world of work annually, so important for governments in the region to pay attention to STEM.
The World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Pierre Frank Laporte, added that skills development was one of the ways Ghana could build its youth for the Future of Work.
Kofi Dadzie, CEO and co-founder, Rancard, an IT firm however noted that the high price of bandwidth in Ghana and other African countries could deter some of the youth from accessing the web.
African Eye Report
